Tuesday, November 18, 2014

I will be away from Bloggyland for awhile. My littlest is having his tonsils and adenoids out on Friday of this week and will be getting tubes and allergy testing as well. My time and energy are going to be focused on him for the next few weeks as he recuperates. Just wanted to let all my readers know that I haven't disappeared and that I will be back. Good thoughts for a successful surgery and a speedy recovery are appreciated. =)

Last year I made this story elements freebie worksheet to go with the book.

I also came across a few new Thanksgiving books I hadn't heard of before. Tammy from the Live. Love. Laugh. Everyday in Kindergarten blog has posted a couple of freebies to go with these books. The Great Turkey Race freebie can be found HERE. And The Silly Turkey Party freebie can be found HERE.

If you need some more fun fall activities, games, or online resources, check out Shannon's Fall Fun website she made. Shannon's blog is technology rocks. seriously. She shares tons of great websites and other technologies on her blog. Go check it out! You won't be disappointed.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

I have come across several Veterans Day resources this year,so I thought I post them for you to enjoy.

First up, the answer to the very important question...Veterans Day or Veteran's Day?

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, it's Veterans Day (no apostrophe). You can read about the reason HERE.

Here are a few brief video clips all about Veterans Day:

Kristine Nannini from the Young Teacher Love blog has put together a packet of FREE TpT "Veteran's Day", yes, grammatically not correct, but still full of some great, spelled correctly, resources for upper grades.

Monday, November 10, 2014

You know that song that gets stuck in your head and you sing it everyday for, like, a week? Yeah, got one of those going on this week.

But it's a fun one, a parody of Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass" called "All About the Books." Someone posted a link to it on Twitter or facebook (can't remember which) over the weekend and it's been stuck in my head ever since.

So being the loving librarian that I am, I am going to share it with you.

Actually, I found SEVERAL versions of it. Feel free to watch them all or just the one that appeals to you the most. But be ready to have it playing in your head all week.

I also include book examples and descriptions that fall into the mystery genre.

To wrap up, students use some simple puzzles to match the definition to the mystery term.

The 4th-6th grade version has a little more to the puzzle. After matching all the puzzle pieces, they have to spell out the secret word using the grey letters in the middle of each puzzle.

I tested these packs out with my second and fourth grade classes and they loved it! They were in groups and wanted to race to see who could complete the puzzles first. With the second grade classes, I called on students randomly to tell me the definition of each term to double check our work. They really enjoyed that.

If you'd like to check out these new mystery packs, you can find them in my TpT store.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

I've been working on getting some of my genre activities available for you to purchase on TpT. I have the first couple of genres ready. I combined fantasy and science fiction because they pair well together.

Both versions contain an introduction PowerPoint that introduces the concept of genres,

and then it goes on to describe the two genres.

Each download also contains an activity sheet that asks students to tell whether or not the book is a fantasy or science fiction book or another genre.

The exciting part is that the answers can be checked with Aurasma! There is also the option to check the answers with the answer slide if you don't happen to have access to a mobile device with the Aurasma app. NOTE: Aurasma is now HP Reveal, but still works the same way.

I have used both these activities with my second and fourth grade classes and they really enjoyed it. You can check out these packs yourself on Teacher's Dojo.